Getting json string programmatically C#

Question

I am trying to get json string from a url by using following line of code. When I enter the url in Google Chrome I get whole string and data. but when I use my code it returns only this line of string
{"expand":"projects","projects":[]}
it is exact what I get when I enter the url in IE 10. How can I get same data that I get when I enter the url in Chrome? here is my code to get the json data.
var jsonStr = new WebClient().DownloadString("https_my_url");

get the [json.net](http://json.codeplex.com/) library to serialize / deserialize any json you encounter. — Wim Ombelets, Sep 13 '13 at 07:40
Does the web site/service you are communicating with require any kind of authentication? Without knowing what site/service you are talking to, its quite difficult to help. — Mesh, Sep 13 '13 at 07:40
@Adrian, I don't see what authentication has to do with the OP's question? — Moo-Juice, Sep 13 '13 at 07:43
Because the data returned from Chrome is different when returned by WebClient. My theory is that, if the request was authenticated then the data returned would be different. — Mesh, Sep 13 '13 at 07:48
Adrian, when I enter the url in chrome I get back a very long string which contins data I want to. but my code and IE10 returns only one line of string which is {"expand":"projects","projects":[]} — user217648, Sep 13 '13 at 08:06
It really sounds like Chrome is returning different data. Have you logged on to the site in Chrome? Chrome may be passing an authentication token in a cookie. WebClient and IE may not have this token because you have not logged in. — Mesh, Sep 13 '13 at 08:12
Adrian, I tested your code it returned same result, only difference was it formated it in three lines instead. same result but it added line break. — user217648, Sep 13 '13 at 08:13
Adrian, you are right, I tried to log on to the site in IE. now it returns same as chrome but it prompts to open/save a file instead. — user217648, Sep 13 '13 at 08:16

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:25

1

You will need to authenticate the request via WebClient.

See this answer for how to do that if the site uses Forms Authentication.

WebClient accessing page with credentials

edited May 23 '17 at 10:25

Community

1
1

answered Sep 13 '13 at 08:26

Mesh

6,262
5
34
53

Thank you Adrian, It seems you need to send your username and password to the server, which I am not allowed to do. Is it possible to use coockie by getting jira's logon page once and having some kind of token or something to use? or using oauth? I am trying to find a solution. – user217648 Sep 13 '13 at 09:17
I don't know much about JIRA but some searching lead me here http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11869780/jira-rest-api-login-using-c-sharp Also Atalssian/JIRA documentation seems very thorough https://developer.atlassian.com/display/JIRADEV/JIRA+REST+API+Example+-+Basic+Authentication – Mesh Sep 13 '13 at 09:41

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 13 '13 at 07:41

0

You need to use a JSON parser to turn it in to something useful. ServiceStack.Text (available via NuGet or download) has an excellent one that can turn json strings in to first-class POCOs.

using ServiceStack.Text;

public sealed class SomeObject
{
    public string expand { get; set; }
    public List<string> projects {get; set; }
}

And convert thusly:

SomeObject object = jsonString.FromJson<SomeObject>();

Note, I would make my POCOs a little more c# friendly and alias away the lower-case:

using ServiceStack.Text;
using ServiceStack.DataAnnotations;

public sealed class SomeObject
{
    [Alias("expand")]
    public string Expand { get; set; }

    [Alias("projects")]
    public List<string> Projects {get; set; }
}

answered Sep 13 '13 at 07:41

Moo-Juice

38,257
10
78
128

Is this relevant to the OP? The question's about receiving different strings between WebClient,Chrome and IE. not JSON de/serialization. – Mesh Sep 13 '13 at 07:46
It *is* about JSON de/serialization (as far as I can tell!) The reason he sees fully formed results in Chrome is because Chrome *knows* it is JSON and is formatting the result appropriately. In his code, he just gets a string back. See the end of his question where he is assigning the result to a basic string. – Moo-Juice Sep 13 '13 at 07:49
It is my first time working with json, does it means that WebClient.DownloadString("") returns whole json data? does it menas that it gets json data but it cannot deserialze it? thanks – user217648 Sep 13 '13 at 07:56
@user217648, correct - `WebClient.DownloadString` will just return the raw, unformatted, string. To easily work with the data you need to de-serialize it. The ServiceStack.Text library has one of the most (if not *the* most) high-performance JSON serializing/deserializing. – Moo-Juice Sep 13 '13 at 07:57

Getting json string programmatically C#

2 Answers2